NEW YORK – Realtor, restaurateur, and philanthropist James Moshovitis was presented on October 28 with “The Greatest Generation Award” at The Washington OXI Day Foundation Gala, celebrating the 75th anniversary of Greece’s heroic act of defiance that inspired the Allied cause in WWII.
Thousands of Greek-Americans served valiantly in the war – Moshovitis was on the first ship that arrived in Tokyo Bay on V-J Day – and the Foundation’s award honors representative veterans.
“I was surprised. I like to be low-key, but I believed in it,” Moshovitis told TNH, adding how he feels about the Foundation, its work, and its founder, Andy Manatos. It is a nonprofit, 501c3 organization dedicated to informing American policymakers and the public about the profound role Greece played in bringing about the outcome of World War II and celebrating modern day heroes who exhibit the same courage as the Greeks did in continuing to fight to preserve and promote freedom and democracy around the world,” according to its website.
The wartime and business highlights of Moshovitis’ life appear against a conventional Greek-American background. He and his wife, Zoe, have two children and four grandchildren. His own parents came together in an arranged marriage set up in Lynn, MA and the wedding took place at Sts. Constantine and Helen Church in Washington, DC.
There is one part of his biography that requires some latter day explanation for those not familiar with community history. Moshovitis noted that politics in Greece caused a deep split among Greek-Americans supporting the monarchists and the Venizelists. His family were royalists, and Sts. Constantine/Helen was Washington’s the city’s royalist church.
Moshovitis was born in Georgetown and lived in the national capital area all his life.
His mother Kandoula worked in the shoe factories of Lynn and his father Aristides – anglicized to Harry – worked hard all his life to support his family.
“My father was brought over by his uncle about 1920 and he was a helper selling produce. He lived in a stable with the horses…He worked six and a half days a week,” Moshovitis said.
Everyone in the family had to work. Moshovitis sold newspapers and attended public school and afternoon Greek school with his two younger sisters, Vivian Kalavritinos and the late Georgia Pistolis,
Growing up, his hobby was airplanes. “No girls. That took money,” he chuckled. “I worked all my life…I didn’t go to college. I learned from the streets,” but he did benefit from business classes in high school.
He remembers the Irish putting down the Greek immigrants, but the children learned to stand up for themselves and their heritage.
He was 18 when he was drafted and he served in the Navy. “I chased submarines in the Atlantic my first year, and then I was chasing the Japanese all over the Pacific – Iwo Jima, Okinawa, the Philippines…I was a radio man,” helping landing craft. “We would take then ashore and run the hell out of there.”
When he returned he went to work in his father’s business. “There used to be a railway station in Roslyn, VA, across from Georgetown and my father had the soda fountain concession there…There wasn’t water there and my mother used carry the water for washing dishes across the Key Bridge before there was a walkway,” Moshovitis said.
“That was not the life for me, but we had a bar also, and I would listen to the businessmen talk about how they made their money and I decided that the best thing was for me to go into real estate,” said the still-sharp man.
He did get involved in restaurants, but he thought that best part of that business was being a landlord, so he started buying properties and was thus able to ride the Post-war Washington, DC boom. “I did fairly well,” he said.
He was bullish on the National Capital area from the start. “People send their money here, they make the money here, and they appropriate the money. It’s all here,” he explained.
Among the people he worked with through the years were James and Ted Pedas, William Calomiris, the Kalavratinos brothers and other well-known Greek-American businessmen.
Asked if he looked into investing in Greece, he told TNH “I thought about it, but I never saw any reason why I should” given the bureaucracy and other obstacles.
Told that they are trying to change the business environment, he was not optimistic. “It’s hard to do business when they have the wrong attitude about things like accountability,” he said.
He loves Greece, but his family couldn’t afford to go to Greece when he was growing up. He loves visiting there now, however, and over the past 10 years he has tried to go every year. He loves Sparta, where he has roots, but he also enjoys the islands like Rhodes, Symi, and Lesbos.
“I like to travel. I travel a lot,” he said, noting his trips to England, Italy and Switzerland and many parts of Asia.
“I worked in Asia for 10 years, but I never could make any money. They were too tough, too smart for me” he said with humility, but he acknowledged that it is hard to crack the cultural and language barrier. “The government runs everything, but it’s all family. If they invite you to the house, you’re in, but rarely do they invite you,” he said.
Told it sounded like scenes from The Godfather for those who were not Italian, he replied “Oh definitely. You’re on the money there.”
He is still active, but noted “I don’t work as much as I used to…I buy a few properties here and there. I try to work smarter instead of harder.”
What he looks at carefully is the potential return on his investment, but not only in established areas. “I’ll speculate also,” he said.
Moshovitis is a devoted family man and he transmitted his dedication to excellence to them. Diana had worked in the education field recruiting high quality principals for New York City high schools and Harry is also involved in real estate.
Moshovitis is also active in numerous philanthropic endeavors.
He is happy that John Catsimatides got him involved with the Ellis Island Foundation. “He’s a good friend of mine,” he told TNH.
He is a proud to support community and Church organizations and is a participant in the Leadership 100 – “the Executive Director, Paulette Poulos, is wonderful. I love her,” he said – and Faith endowment, whose Spiritual Advisor is Father Alexander Karloutsos, Protopresbyter of the Ecumenical Patriarchate.
“He is the one that got me involved with Greek things. It began with Leadership 100 and I have been involved in Greek things ever since…He made a Greek out of me, really,” and noted Fr. Karloutsos has done that for a lot of people.
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